So someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child is by default a pedophile? Lovely.

That does seem extreme. I mean, I have no personal desire to be anywhere within earshot of kids I'm not related to, but my understanding is that societal expectations are for most people to find them entertaining and delightful on general principle.

There was a discussion of sports rivalries, and nobody mentioned UNC-Duke?

Unpossible.

I am trying to ease into a low-carb, low- fat, low-sugar diet that I have done before. I remember the first week being hard, but holy moley I am hungry. I really need to remember some protein at every meal, this veggie only salad is not cutting it.

I am trying not to have sugar for June, and I am finding that hard. I'm not being even super strict...I'm not going to freak if a baked good has some sugar in it, or if I have a flavoured yogurt with sugar in it. I already had one "special occasion" where I had to have dessert.

So someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child is by default a pedophile? Lovely.

Honestly, I don't especially want my kid and her friends playing their kid games to be a spectator sport, and God knows when I was a kid the very thought that someone was watching me play would have caused me to freeze up and run for cover. Playgrounds are definitely a weird hybrid public/private space, and I can see the civil liberties issues, but I can't get that worked up about it. My kid is there to interact with other kids, soak up some vitamin D, run off some of her energy, and exercise her capacity for imaginative play; none of them are there for anyone's amusement but their own.

eta: Which is not at all to say that I think all kid-watchers are pedophiles; just that they ping my previously existing privacy-loving shy I'm-not-here-for-you-to-look-at buttons.

Or there's a donut shop across the street and you want to sit down and chat. Or you have trouble walking distances and need to sit down for a few minutes. Or it's a nice day and there isn't another park around.

Like I said, in SF it's really just very, very well-defined areas (the one non-gated playground I can think of is in the middle of a residential area; there's a corner market a couple of blocks away, and a major street five blocks away, but the park itself is near nothing but apartments in any direction), and I've never heard of anyone being hassled for just sitting down to rest.

I admit, as a tourist, I have sat down in a park in another country (to take a rest from the touristing, or eat something)

One of the final scenes in Paris, je t'aime is just that, of an American woman who's been on her dream trip to Paris just sitting down in one of the neighborhood parks to eat her lunch and finally understanding the real Paris at that moment, and having the best part of her entire trip there, watching the Parisians experience life.

Honestly, I don't especially want my kid and her friends playing their kid games to be a spectator sport, and God knows when I was a kid the very thought that someone was watching me play would have caused me to freeze up and run for cover.

All the parents and nannies and whoever are sitting there looking at the kids, aren't they?

Now I'm wondering how many cities have laws about not being in parks without a child.

It's not parks, it's playgrounds. Specifically, fenced-in playgrounds with nothing in them except for children's play areas. (There are also playgrounds which are fully public - in Prospect Park the easiest way to tell the difference because the public playgrounds have chess tables.)

So someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child is by default a pedophile? Lovely.

No, someone who enjoys watching children play but isn't in the company of a child can by default eat their goddamn doughnuts on one of the many benches on the sidewalk or bike path right outside the fenced in playground.

It's entirely possible that in this case, the police officers were in the wrong. But it's not stupid or crazy for a city to carve out safe spaces for children and caregivers.

I don't mind the law so much, but I think it's there as a tool for the place to shoo off shady characters instead of two young women on a donut spree.

It's the officer's discretion that I find faulty in this instance.

It's the officer's discretion that I find faulty in this instance.

Under the Bloomberg administration the police have been fairly ticket-crazy. I have a feeling this case was about meeting a quota more than keeping the city safe.

The Sun of God

For all the Athiests [sic] out there, try to deny this! If there is no God, how does the sun stay burning if there's no oxygen in space?